A friend your own age!

Thanks to the pandemic, Eliana (7 and a half) and Evan (7 in two months) spent the last year and a half attending school online. Their classmates were faces in little boxes on a screen. They didn't have opportunities to play with others their own age. Eliana is an only child. Evan's only sibling is four years older than he and already adept at everything--or so it seems. 

I wondered if it would be difficult for them to play together, so I am delighted to see how easily they enter each other's fantasy worlds. They take turns pushing each other in the swings. They climb and fall and laugh and become a whole cast of characters: Super-Rabbit, Ultra-Rabbit, Giant Carrot, and then Carrot Car--they morph. She adds a line to their story, and then he does, and they both leap and run and celebrate having a friend. That wonder. That thing that many have taken for granted until now. A friend. Your own age. In person. 

After Sue and Eliana left, Evan said to me, "I like playing with Eliana. We didn’t have any arguments at all about anything. We just play the same way.”